KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Armed ban­dits struck mul­ti­ple homes across Cen­tral Trinidad in a string of ear­ly-morn­ing in­va­sions on Tues­day, leav­ing be­hind ter­ri­fied fam­i­lies who were robbed of cash, valu­ables, and, in one case, a ve­hi­cle.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing four sep­a­rate home in­va­sions re­port­ed in Tal­paro, Freeport, and Long­denville, with all in­ci­dents oc­cur­ring be­tween ap­prox­i­mate­ly mid­night and 4.45 am.

In Tal­paro, a res­i­dent along Main Road re­port­ed that af­ter se­cur­ing his home and go­ing to bed short­ly af­ter 1.30 am, he was awak­ened around 3.50 am by a loud noise. He told po­lice that three masked men, one armed with a cut­lass and an­oth­er with an ob­ject re­sem­bling a firearm, con­front­ed him and an­nounced a rob­bery. The sus­pects stole $10,000 in cash and his black Toy­ota Hilux be­fore flee­ing.

In a sep­a­rate Tal­paro in­ci­dent, an­oth­er res­i­dent re­port­ed be­ing awak­ened around 3 am af­ter hear­ing a noise. Three masked men, two armed with cut­lass­es and one with a firearm-like ob­ject, en­tered the home, de­mand­ed mon­ey, and es­caped with $2,500 in cash.

In Freeport, a fam­i­ly of five on Tee­warie Road Ex­ten­sion was tar­get­ed around 4.45 am when three men forced en­try by pry­ing open a win­dow and bur­glar-proof­ing. One sus­pect car­ried a firearm while the oth­ers were armed with cut­lass­es. The oc­cu­pants were or­dered to lie on the ground as the as­sailants ran­sacked the home, es­cap­ing with $600 in cash, jew­ellery, and a Sam­sung A32 cell­phone.

Po­lice said the sus­pects fled in a black Toy­ota Hilux bear­ing the same reg­is­tra­tion as the ve­hi­cle stolen in Tal­paro, which was lat­er found crashed in a ditch op­po­site the Freeport home and re­cov­ered by po­lice.

In Long­denville, around 4.05 am, five masked men armed with firearms stormed a home along Todd’s Road. The in­trud­ers en­tered through a west­ern-side door, de­mand­ed cash and jew­ellery, and es­caped with $7,000 and an undis­closed quan­ti­ty of gold jew­ellery and oth­er valu­ables.

Po­lice re­port­ed that the sus­pects used a dark-coloured Toy­ota Hilux, match­ing one from pre­vi­ous in­ci­dents, as a get­away ve­hi­cle. It was lat­er found aban­doned in Freeport.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors processed all four lo­ca­tions, while po­lice con­tin­ue to col­lect CCTV footage and pur­sue leads in the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.